Hyacinth
by Assimbya
Summary: When Lucy learns that Mina is living with Grayson, she will not leave her in harm's way. Set post-season one.


Fingernails tapping against the window, rhythmically, like piano keys. A girl sitting inside, wan ad wrought, surrounded by luxury - Persian carpets on the floor, Ukrainian icons on the wall, all the most comfortable, modern furniture - yet her eyes are fixed outside, on the slow slide of the rain. She feels ungrateful, spoiled in her boredom, but she wants to get out. Her fingers itch for pen and paper, for the sobering smoothness of a scalpel. She wants to work. She wants to be _useful._

Alexander is away. He has been away so often of late, making what he can of the wreckage of his company. He left her with a kiss, this time, a promise to bring her a new record to listen to over dinner, and order the cook to prepare something special to match. Mina had tried to smile in response, to appear gracious and loving, but she could not help but think with dread of the prospect of another day within that house, however bright and beautiful. Loneliness gnaws at her.

(She has asked him, when she might be able to leave, why she cannot know, but his response has been to clutch her to his breast with passion. "It pains me too, not to have you by my side at all times, but after all the violence that has passed lately, you would not be safe," he took her face between his hands and she thought, selfishly, that he spoke as though to a child, "Mina, I cannot risk losing you again."

And so she was silent, and did not argue, and let captivity be her lot. There was so much she did not understand, so many bloody deaths and kidnappings and explosions. They did terrify her. But she could not trust that remaining inside his home would ensure her safety.)

Thus on this day, as any other, she sits beside the window. But, on this day, the doorbell rings.

Normally, she would wait for one of the servants to answer it (as Alexander would remind her, it would be safer that way), but she feels restless. She answers it herself.

- and it is Lucy there, Lucy with her shining yellow hair and warm, up-curved smile, Lucy the friend of her heart, Lucy who has harmed Mina and who Mina has so harmed that the shame and pain of it congeals in Mina's throat. Lucy is there, at her doorstep, holding a bouquet of hyacinths and dressed smartly in pale purple to match.

Mina does not know what to say. She watches Lucy's lips, which she never remembered being so red, part, and listens to her speak: "I hoped I would find you here, Mina. These are for you."

She holds out the hyacinths. Automatically, before she can think better of it, Mina reaches out and takes them. Their fingers brush momentarily as she does so. She remembers, slowly, _hyacinths: forgive me. _Lucy was always more adept at it than she.

Without her willing it, or even quite knowing why, Mina feels tears welling in her eyes. "I have reason to ask forgiveness from you as well," she says softly, feeling the smooth stems of the flowers, green and healthy, beneath her fingers.

But Lucy only smiles. "May I come in?" she asks, gently but insistently.

"Of course." Embarrassed at her own lapse in manners, Mina steps back from the door to allow Lucy entrance. "I'll show you to the sitting room - I can have tea brought, if you like."

Smoothly, Lucy steps inside. "You are quite the fine hostess now, aren't you? No, I don't need anything, thank you."

As she leads Lucy to the sitting room, Mina feels unsure of whether or not her friend is trying to mock her. "Mr. Grayson has been generous enough to grant me residence in his home, at least until the recent tragedies have been resolved. I am very grateful to him."

They come to the sitting room. Mina offers Lucy a seat, but remains standing herself, awkwardly clutching at the flowers. She should go and put them in a vase, but, somehow, she does not want them out of her grasp.

"Lucy -" she begins, and then stops, the words catching and tangling in her mouth.

Lucy leans forward, her wrists crossed lightly across her knees. "Yes, Mina?"

"I said terrible things to you before, cruel things, and I have no good excuse for them. I was shocked, by what you said and did, half out of my mind with it, but - you don't disgust me, Lucy. You never could." She looked down at the curves of the hyacinths. "I don't mean any offense, but why are you coming to see me, after all of that?"

Simply, Lucy said, "I'll always love you, Mina." And then, after a considered pause. "And I'm worried about you."

Mina could not help but laugh at that, and turned away so that she did not have to see Lucy's face. "Worried about _me? _You vanished! No one seemed to know what happened to you; I thought the worst."

"I'm all right," Lucy answered her, "I had a difficult time, but I'm all right now. But you - you're living with Mr. Grayson."

She felt her breath catch in her throat. "It was his kindness, as I told you. I can't trust Jonathan any longer." It gave her a pang to say this; they were words that she had thus far managed to avoid speaking aloud. "Mr. Grayson has done much for me in my misfortune."

Lucy's voice rang out, too loud in the parlor. "And what has he asked of you in return?" Mina did not answer her. "Do you expect to be allowed ever to qualify as a doctor, once everyone knows that you've been living in his house?"

Mina's voice was quiet. "He plans to marry me."

She heard the soft swish of Lucy's skirts as she stood and came to Mina's side. "I don't know whether you'll believe this from me, Mina, but Mr. Grayson is not who he claims to be. I'm scared for you here."

"If only you knew how many times I have been told that by someone!" Anger flooded from her, anger which she had held within for too long. "I'll be the first to admit that Aleander keeps secrets; I _know _there's more to his past than he's shared with me, and even that some of that, whatever it is, is shaping how he treats me, how he looks at me. But he has been kind to me, he has been _here _for me, when no one else has -"

Lucy spoke calmly, steadily. "I know, and I wish I could have been here for you all this time. I'm sorry. But you're not alone now. You have me. And I'm not going to leave or betray you."

Almost without knowing it, Mina found herself weeping, and wrapping her arms around Lucy. She smelled like her old, familiar scent of violet and rose, and the smell of it soothed Mina, made her feel, at least for a moment, as though everything would be all right. "I've missed you so much, Lucy. And I love you." Lucy returned her embrace, and for a moment the two women simply stood in one another's arms, quiet. Mina could not tell whether Lucy too was crying.

Eventually, Mina extracted herself slowly from the embrace, though she kept hold of one of Lucy's hands, which was soft and small in her own, so unlike Alexander's. The hyacinths were slightly crushed from being between them, and the sight made both of them giggle momentarily.

When their laughter had quieted, Mina spoke slowly. "There are many things I want to ask you, but I don't want you to answer anything you don't wish to share. I would like to know what happened, how you disappeared, but if it's a painful memory I don't expect -"

"I can't tell you all of it," Lucy's voice was sharp and rough, like a shutter closing, "I don't even know if you'd believe me."

Mina attempted to smile. "Try me."

Lucy inhaled slowly. "I can't explain most of it; I don't understand it myself. But I can tell you - someone broke into the house and hurt me, and I was very frightened, and I felt I had no option but to run away. I didn't know what to do."

Mina ached, thinking of Lucy alone and in fear. "God, Lucy, I'm so sorry. Why wouldn't I believe something like that? Why wouldn't I believe that my friend was suffering?"

Lucy kept her voice steady, but Mina could tell that it took considerable focus for her to do so. "Because the person who hurt me was Mr. Grayson."

For an instant, Mina felt herself recoil, and everything inside her wanted to shut down in disbelief. But she restrained the instinct. She thought of Lucy, a few years ago, her face blotchy with tears. She thought of Lucy kissing her. She thought of everything she didn't know about Alexander, his long absences and his mysterious past.

Of course Lucy was telling her the truth.

All at once, a practical part of her mind, the part that could calculate quickly what steps to take for a patient in an emergency, turned on. "We need to get you out of here then, you're not safe. Do you have somewhere else to go? Are you staying somewhere private?"

Lucy squeezed her fingers. "I'm not worried about myself," she replied, "there's nothing more he can do to me. But I'm worried about you. I won't let him harm you as he's harmed me."

Mina did not ask what kind of harm it was that Lucy was referring to; she did not want to think too closely about it, nor did she want to make her friend think closely on and recount such a clearly upsetting experience. She thought through several responses, and rejected each of them. Finally she asked simply, "Can I come stay with you?"

The smile that illuminated Lucy's face made her look more beautiful than the hyacinths, more beautiful than any flowers Mina had seen before. "Of course!" And then, hesitation - "But I thought you might not be comfortable with that, after -"

Mina blushed. "I said such foolish things then. I told you, I was shocked, I didn't know what to think." She looked away from Lucy. She wanted to say this, but she didn't know if she could stand to see Lucy's face as she did. "I think what you said disturbed me so much because I've - I've always felt the same way about you, but I haven't known what to call it, what to do with it. I put it away in a corner of my mind because I thought it was a childish feeling, and one which might even be harmful. When you said that, when you kissed me, it stirred up everything which I kept in order for so long. It scared me."

Lucy reached up and touched Mina's cheek, cupped her palm around it. "You can't know what it means to me to hear you say this. For so long I've -"

Mina closed her hand around Lucy's. "I know. I understand that now. And I wish we hadn't needed to hurt one another so before coming to this place."

"So do I," Lucy replied with feeling. "You'll come with me now, though? You feel comfortable with that?"

Mina did not know where the certainty in her voice came from, but she was glad for it. "I do. I don't know what will be next, for me, for us - I might need to be patient with me about all this. It's still very new to me. But I know that I do want to come with now."

There was Lucy's smile again. "That's all I need to know," she said, and kissed Mina's cheek. After a moment Mina carefully, tentatively, kissed her lips in response.

She left Alexander Grayson's house and did not look back.


End file.
